Catalyst
by Marasquin
Summary: Maddie's death has left the sons of Ipswich broken:  Reid angry, Pogue lost, Caleb indifferent and Tyler suffering, all wishing it had never happened.  A familiar face reappears, Tyler starts questioning his sanity and the solution makes everything worse.
1. Cheers

"Cheers, mate."

Their bottles hit with a sharp sound, and moments later Pogue jerked his head back to take a long swig of his beer. He exhaled loudly afterwards, grinning over at Tyler.

"Good shit." He said.

Tyler nodded in agreement absent-mindedly and took a sip. It tasted like water, but worse. He stared down at the content of his brown bottle, and at then back up at the dozens of classmates drinking the same thing. The purpose of it all was lost on him, until a buxom blonde danced by him, spilling her drink, and took off her shirt.

"Jesus Christ." He whispered as she staggered towards an unsuspecting male and latched onto him. Soon he knew she would be throwing up all the alcohol, purging her system and all the scum she inhaled by kissing all the men at the party.

Not much of a party, anyways. Just the smoke from drugs, lights from the strobes and alcohol by the buckets. Bodies gyrating in the dark, oblivious of everything around them.

A joint was passed around close to him. He ignored it, and weaved through the crowd to try and find a familiar face. Pogue had gone off with Kate, Caleb with Sarah and Reid, celebrating his one-month anniversary of monogamy, with Anastasia.

Tyler walked by Aaron and a few other of his classmates from Spencer. Then, after dropping his half empty bottle of beer in an open garbage can, saw Caleb and Sarah in a tight embrace. His heart skipped a beat and he spun around to avoid them. But everywhere he looked there seemed to be more couples, more kissing and more girls with long, pale hair.

"Gah."

He grabbed a shot glass from the hands of a guy that was already drunk enough, and downed the burning liquid in one gulp. He coughed a few times afterwards, but still, eyes watering, searched for another glass of liquor to drown his sorrow.

He found one. He down one, two, three, but it just got worse.

_I died because of you!!_

"SHUT UP!" He screeched. A few heads turned his way but almost nobody noticed over the loud music. He stifled a sob, and straightened up.

He kept trying, although he had realized long ago, maybe the moment she died, that he was never going to forget Madeline Sparrow, and that her ghost was going to keep haunting him for the rest of his life.

If the Sons of Ipswich had never kept secrets from each other, the death of Madeline Sparrow had made it so that suddenly they felt the need to.

Reid wouldn't admit that he sometimes felt like ceasing his sympathetic act and start screaming at Tyler that if he didn't stop moaning about his deceased _one true love_ he will make it his business to stick those stupid roses he kept dropping off at her tree up in a place where Tyler would regret not removing the thorns.

Caleb never spoke of the immense relief he felt when he saw Maddie crumple like a puppet whose strings were cut. Nor of the lack of guilt he displayed now for thinking such things.

Pogue sometimes wished that the four of them were less egocentric and would band together like they used to when they first had their powers, or at least stop calling themselves a group since they really weren't anymore.

And Tyler casually forgot to mention where he went at night, and what unethical subjects he researched at the library. Such as resurrection. And on the nights like these when he couldn't bear to sneak into the building past midnight he would go and try to forget, still.

The alcohol wouldn't stay in his system, and as soon as his buzz had happened it was gone again, and he was lucid again. And everywhere he looked he would see Maddie, and he would like to tell her to die in peace, please, and leave him alone. Or then just simply come back if she loved him so much.

* * *

_Yayyyy sequel. I know nothing has happened much, but things will, believe me. Just keep on reviewing!! Oh, and i'd like to point out that i do not encourage teenage drinking at all. But, as we all know, boys will be boys.  
_


	2. Murderer

If the Sons of Ipswich had never kept secrets from each other, the death of Madeline Sparrow had made it so that suddenly they felt the need to. 

Reid wouldn't admit that he sometimes felt like ceasing his sympathetic act and start screaming at Tyler that if he didn't stop moaning about his deceased _one true love_ he will make it his business to stick those stupid roses he kept dropping off at her tree up in a place where Tyler would regret not removing the thorns.

Caleb never spoke of the immense relief he felt when he saw Maddie crumple like a puppet whose strings were cut. Nor of the lack of guilt he displayed now for thinking such things.

Pogue sometimes wished that the four of them were less egocentric and would band together like they used to when they first had their powers, or at least stop calling themselves a group since they really weren't anymore.

And Tyler, besides being considerably more temperamental than before, casually forgot to mention where he went at night, and what unethical subjects he researched at the library.

* * *

Tyler stuck the flashlight between his teeth and positioned it awkwardly in a way so the thin beam of light shone on both pages of the book he had propped up against his left forearm. With his right hand he flipped through the pages quickly, scanning their content with blackened eyes. Arriving at the end of the book he clumsily placed it back on the shelf and grabbed another from the pile he had created.

"Mahgik" He read aloud from the cover. "Vahriuss youses, ledgens, miffsh." He lowered his voice and skimmed through the index. He found nothing of what he was looking for. He spit the book out.

"Shit." He growled. He kicked the useless book and it skidded under a bookshelf. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked, moping, out of the library, unlocking doors before he reached them and locking them again once he had passed them. He was angry, now.

"How fucking difficult is it to find a book on resuscitation." He hissed to himself as he stepped into the rain outside and walked towards his dorm room.

* * *

"Good morning, Tyler. How are you feeling?"

Tyler raised his head from his desk and stared up at Sarah, who was smiling sweetly at him.

"Fine." He groaned, and hid his head again. The bright light was giving him headaches.

"Really?" Sarah sat down on the desk beside him. "You seem… sick."

"I drank more than the entire football team put together last night." He snapped. "I'm not immune to fucking hangovers, Sarah."

"Sorry." She said softly. "Look, if there is anything I can do to help…"

"Maddie died a month ago. You're a bit late to be part of the sympathy wagon."

"Tyler, please…"

"Please what?" His head snapped up. "Be nice? Be cool about this? Stop caring? Well I can't, sorry. I happen to have a heart, thank you very much."

Sarah stood. She crossed her arms protectively over her chest and looked around nervously.

"Well if you need me you know where to find me." She said quickly, before Tyler could snap back at her. Then she walked away quickly, clutching her textbooks to her chest. Tyler buried his head in his arms again and tried to block out all the noise around him, unsuccessfully.

Someone angrily walked over, grabbed a handful of his hair and forcefully yanked his head up.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Caleb Danvers snapped. Tyler grabbed his wrist and detached the fingers from his scalp one by one, not saying anything. "Sarah didn't have anything to do with her death, so leave her the fuck alone!"

"Her?" Tyler said angrily, getting shakily to his feet. "You can't even be bothered to say her name? What kind of hero are you? Claiming you're all compassionate and caring and whatnot… Its your fault that Maddie died!"

"Tyler. Shut up." He hissed, looking around to make sure no one was paying attention to his outburst.

"Why? Because you don't want the world to know that you caused the death of an innocent girl?" Tyler had walked up to Caleb and was hissing in his ear. "Murderer."

Caleb punched him in the side of the jaw. Tyler went flying backwards, hitting a desk and splitting it in half. Now people were noticing them, and a crowd had gathered around to watch the fight. In this crowd was Pogue, who was running up to Caleb, worry on his face.

"Caleb, man, what are you doing-" But he was cut off as Caleb shoved him away to block Tyler's oncoming punch.

The two went on like that for several minutes, hitting or missing their punches and rolling on the ground when they managed to get a hold of themselves. Soon Tyler had Caleb pinned to the floor, blood dripping from his nose onto his shirt and a death grip on his friend's collar as he sent blow after blow to his face, hissing the same word over and over with every hit.

"Murderer. Murderer. Murder-"

He stopped himself in the middle of his sentence when he looked up and looked into the scarily familiar gray eyes, who belonged to a face twisted in horror at the scene going on before her. But before he could call out the name he had been screaming in his sleep Caleb had taken advantage of his momentary distraction and knocked him back, before kicking him so hard in the side of the head Tyler blacked out, but not before mumbling incomprehensibly in his damaged state:

"She's back… fuck, she came back…"

* * *

_Sorry for the slow updates. School has been weighing on me really, really, heavily, and i'm finding it more and more difficult to find time to update, especially since my laptop broke and now i'm forced to use the family computer, which i share with three other people... But i haven't given up yet!_


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